


Poor Unfortunate Souls

by DoubleApple



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Auror Harry Potter, Both straight and gay sex, Children, Dont you dare be mean to Ginny i love her, Everyone is bisexual okay, F/M, Flashbacks, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Have i mentioned there is sex, Hurt/Comfort, Legilimency, M/M, Marriage, Masturbation, Please be advised about the sex, Post-War Trauma, Potioneer Draco Malfoy, Potions, Quidditch Player Ginny Weasley, Under-negotiated consensual sex, Unplanned Pregnancy, legilimency sex, slightly rough sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-16
Updated: 2019-07-16
Packaged: 2020-05-12 16:59:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 19,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19233340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoubleApple/pseuds/DoubleApple
Summary: Draco is a potioneer. Harry is trying to save his sex-challenged marriage. Everything is a mess, but at least there's an octopus in the lobby.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> ElleGray, thank you for this delicious prompt ('Poor Unfortunate Souls' - The Little Mermaid), and I hope you like where it went! 
> 
> Thanks to the incomparable Q for the alpha and beta and everything in between, and to N for the fantastic beta. I appreciate you both so much, and this story is so much stronger, more nuanced, and more fun because of you.
> 
> And a huge thank you to the amazing mods for running such a great fest. 
> 
> All characters property of Scholastic and J.K. Rowling.

Eight days after the battle, Harry — in Ginny’s words — makes plans to “fuck off” to Romania. 

“I’m not fucking off anywhere,” he tries to tell her late at night, in another whispered fight in her tiny, stifling bedroom. He’s lying and they both know it; fucking off somewhere, anywhere, is exactly what he’s doing. Romania is just the only option that’s been presented to him. He can’t breathe during these fights, can’t think. The air gets murky and thick. 

“The great Harry Potter, running away,” she says, quietly, bitterly. 

He closes his eyes against the words. “Gin. I can’t— I can’t stay here. I have to get out of here,” he says, although he doesn’t move. ‘Here’ means this bed, this room, yes, but also the Burrow, Devon, the whole of bloody England. He’d like to get out of his own skin, if possible, to tear away his body somehow and flee. This urge to run is new to him — he thought he was a stand-and-fight kind of person, but who knows, now — and it’s so strong, it’s overwhelming. Maybe the brave and stubborn part of him was Voldemort in his head. Maybe he’s used up all his courage and he’s a coward now. 

“What would you suggest _I_ do, then?” she asks, angry, and he has no answer. She props herself up on her elbows, her hair falling like curtains around her face. Her shape is indistinct in the dim light but her eyes, like always, are on fire. They gleam in accusation. 

“I’m meant to go back to school and pretend nothing’s happened?" she continues. "Is there even a school to go back to? Are the professors… ?” 

Still, he has no answer. _You’re definitely a coward now_ , he tells himself. 

So it’s Ginny’s turn to throw aside the thin sheet, get up, and storm out of the room. Harry’s relieved to see her go. This bed has become torture for both of them. 

They’d both tried to lose their virginity right in this spot, on the same sheets and in the same murky darkness the night after Fred’s funeral. Was that three days ago? Four? Harry’s lost count. He can’t stop thinking about that night, though, and it begins to replay itself in his mind as he lies back, blinking at the ceiling, trying and failing to draw a deep breath. 

When they’d come back to the Burrow, she’d wordlessly motioned for him to follow her up to her room, at first leading him by the hand and then dropping it when they’d reached the stairs. Her back climbed in front of him, straight as a rail, unyielding. Rigid. 

She wouldn’t, or didn’t, cry at the funeral, and afterward he’d thought that maybe they could let themselves be softer with each other. Harry had sat between Ginny and Ron, and Ron had sobbed, so hard and so silently that Harry didn’t know at first what was shaking the bench. Harry had no idea what to do, although Hermione had put her arms around Ron so tenderly, had seemed to wrap up his gangly arms and pull in his sadness so effortlessly, that Harry’s heart still hurt from it. 

But Ginny had sat like a stone, and hours later, in her room, she’d stripped off her dress robes — too short at the wrists; she’s still growing — and the too-small flowered dress she’d had on underneath. He could see the outline of her body, almost glowing in the darkness, but he didn't want to and he’d turned away. Naked, she’d gotten into bed while he was still standing just in front of the closed door. Her hair caught beneath her and she swept it out with her hand, the way she always did. The old familiar gesture, the fact that Ginny still did it the same way he’d seen her do a million times before — before all of this, before _this_ was what their lives looked like — made him feel impossibly sad. Days later, it still does. 

He went to sit next to her, still fully clothed, and when she moved aside to make space for him, the sheet slipped from her shoulder. There was a large bruise there, yellow and purple, healing but still angry. It was so vivid that it stood out even in the dim light.

“Do you want me to…?" He'd trailed off, motioning at it. They’d all healed each other a dozen times in the past few days, learning new spells for soreness and cuts and bruising. Hermione was the best at it — her healing spells felt like dipping your hand into cool water on a summer day — but Harry wasn’t too bad. 

Ginny had shifted away. “Don’t. I want it there. I need it there,” she whispered, the first words she’d spoken in hours, and they hurt Harry’s heart, which was already full to overflowing. A sob escaped before he’d managed to put his hand over his mouth. He felt tears on his face, and he couldn't draw a breath. Panic rose in his throat. 

Distantly, he felt Ginny’s hand on his leg, through his dress robes and his jeans underneath, but he couldn’t bear it, couldn’t be touched, couldn’t be in that room with her. So he ran, leaving Ginny naked and alone in her bed, knowing it was the wrong choice even as he was making it. Yet another thing he’d fucked up and could never fix. 

Harry tore down the stairs, through the living room, the kitchen, and clattered out the back door into the garden. Once he was there, he fell to all fours instinctively, his hands and knees on the ground. Above him, the sky was sparkling and clear, but Harry didn’t see it; he only looked down into the grass and sobbed as he pictured graves and earth, the loamy dark soil. It had rained earlier and the ground was wet; it soaked through the knees of his jeans before he even realised his hands were damp. 

Harry didn’t feel better, exactly, but at least the tears stopped choking him. He sobbed, down on all fours, grounded and safe from Ginny’s fire, and that was when he knew he had to leave. 

That was four days ago. It’s helping her to argue so he lets her, participates even, but they both know his heart isn’t in it. Everything feels empty and numb, particularly his head. The part that Voldemort used to occupy, maybe. He doesn’t know. It’s strange and it feels terrible, but all the people he would have told about this new development are dead — Professor Lupin, Dumbledore, Sirius — and what is Harry supposed to do now? Going to Romania, with Charlie, seems like the safest bet — away from the press and all the sad eyes in the Burrow.

Harry has no real idea what Romania looks like. But when he pictures it, he sees flat fields, mountains in the distance, a sort of endless, purple twilight where no one talks to him and he can be alone as much as he wants. That's all he wants, now. 

Eventually, he forces himself back inside, back to Ginny's room, but her bed is empty. He spends the whole night staring at the ceiling and doesn’t see her until just before he steps into the Floo the next morning. Molly is in tears next to him. Arthur looks like he's in physical pain. Even Charlie, his own bag packed and slung over his shoulder, seems a bit wobbly, but Harry doesn’t cry. He won't cry again for months, maybe years. Ginny stands with the rest of the family and stares straight ahead, past Harry as though she’s already looking into the future. The fire in her eyes is the last thing he sees before he steps into the green flames. 

\---

Harry hates Romania. 

The dragon preserve is windy and freezing all the time. Perhaps sensing his unease and mistrust of his own body, the dragons refuse to be around him, unsettled and shifty, whipping their tails in his direction. They dislike him so much that the older handlers have to move him to menial chores. It's repetitive, exhausting, dirty work. It’s made harder because the magical dampeners they need for the dragons mean most spells don’t work, so he does it all the Muggle way. Harry is reminded, often, of life with the Dursleys. 

Charlie is around but remote, cool and distant like an older sibling who doesn’t have time for you. The other handlers give him a very wide berth — perhaps because they’re intimidated, or simply because they don’t like him. He's certainly made their lives more difficult. 

A few weeks in, the press figures out where Harry is, and he's sure they're going to tell him to bugger off. Instead, they double down and relocate the whole preserve because of him, which almost makes him feel worse. They have to set up different and more complicated concealment charms in the new location. It’s harder to get in and out. Veterinarians and suppliers and handlers coming back from holiday can’t find the preserve, and they have to set up a new, complex portkey system. He can't look the other handlers in the eye for weeks.

Harry knows he is a burden on them — not just useless with the animals, but an active, acute inconvenience. He goes days and days without talking to anyone. He’s alone, all right, and it’s brutal. He forces himself to stay in Romania for six full months, which feels like a lonely lifetime, and then he returns to Grimmauld Place with no plan. 

Ginny is back at Hogwarts for her final year, and they start arguing immediately when she's home for the winter hols. After yet another fight in her bedroom, they agree to “see other people” and “give each other space” — phrases that feel like they’re borrowed too conveniently from someone else. Harry wonders who. And space… how can there be more space than Romania? 

He moves into Grimmauld Place for good. It's dusty and sad and full of memories, but at least it has four walls and furniture and he isn’t constantly surrounded by hostile dragons. Harry spends all his time in the living room, watching television and sleeping on the couch, avoiding Sirius' old bedroom and the entire second floor of the house. He avoids the kitchen, too, with its memories of Order meetings and loud communal meals. Hermione and Ron and Neville bring takeaways that they all eat on the couch. Empty cartons and pizza boxes pile up for days before Harry can be bothered to Vanish them. 

Once, he doesn't leave the house for nearly a fortnight. He's trying to wait out the paparazzi camped outside his door, and it works — they get bored, bugger off, and start stalking other fools instead. 

Harry plays a lot of video games during this strange period of isolation, and he wanks. He makes up for lost time, years of being too consumed by uncertainty and fear to ever learn his own body. He begins to figure out what he likes, where it feels good to touch himself, exactly how and what and why. Wizarding pornography is very, very good; moving images have many uses. It is an excellent way to make time go by faster, Harry finds. He wanks a lot. 

Six more months go by, then six more, then another year. Harry turns twenty-one. He works weekends and nights at the joke shop, sometimes, helping out Ron and George, levitating boxes from storage out onto the floor. But he has to use a glamour so he's not recognised by strangers, and so the press doesn’t get wind of it. The charm irritates him constantly; he doesn’t like the feeling of someone else’s skin on his body. Polyjuice is even worse. He doesn’t care for the work anyway, and he doesn’t need to do it, so he stops. He still has no plan.

And then Ginny finishes her first few semesters of uni, where — according to Ron — she does literally nothing but eat, sleep, and play Quidditch. She comes to visit Harry once, stepping out of his Floo unexpectedly one rainy December night. He hadn't even realised his wards were open to her.

"Harold," she says, brushing soot from her jumper. She's cut her hair very short and sleek, cropped close to her head. It looks good, Harry thinks. "You didn't come to the match." It had been her first one starting as the team's Seeker, and the whole family had gone. 

He rubs at his neck. "Er, sorry. I wasn't sure if you wanted me there," he says, suddenly conscious of the dirty room around him. He sits up straighter on the sofa and wonders if he could get away with a quick straightening charm, but she's already glancing around, taking in the whole sloppy scene. 

"I wasn't sure, either," Ginny says, walking toward him. "But it turns out I did." He sees her eye a piece of half-eaten toast with marmalade on a paper towel on the coffee table, an empty fish and chips box, the menu from the pizza shop nearby. Three cups of cold tea plus one open bottle of ale from last night. There are wires and game controllers everywhere; there's a sock on the floor that he'd used to clean himself up with, earlier. 

"Sorry," he says again. Fuck, but she looks fit. The new hair suits her, and Harry sneaks a long look at her lanky body, at once familiar and enticing. Her broad, bony shoulders, her long neck, her breasts, her freckles. She's beautiful; he'd forgotten. 

"This place is disgusting,” Ginny says, but she’s walking toward him, a small smile threatening to escape. 

"It is," he agrees. She's very close to him now, nudging his knee with her own. He widens his legs, and she steps between them. Unexpectedly, she kneels, holding eye contact the whole time, and puts her hands solidly on the tops of his thighs. His cock hardens immediately and she notices, smiles wider, quirks an eyebrow. Oddly, Harry doesn't even feel embarrassed. Could this be the reason she'd come? Or had all this wanking somehow addled his brain?

"Harold," she says once more, a lascivious edge to her voice this time, and Harry needs to touch her new hair. He leans forward to capture her head between his hands. He kisses her, hard, and then he guesses they're back together because he loses his virginity at last about two and a half minutes later, when they wind up fucking right there on the dirty couch. It's glorious. 

\---

Sex is everything, in the beginning. 

Ginny already slept with someone else — a sixth-year Ravenclaw, rumour has it, but the two of them never discuss it — and Harry is relieved not to have to shoulder the burden of being her first. Also, she has a bit more of an idea of what she's doing than he does, which is convenient. 

They make up for lost time. They fuck in every room of Grimmauld Place: on the kitchen floor, on the dining table, in the shower, up against the front door. They lie down in front of Walburga’s portrait once, on purpose just to scandalise her, although they both have to go into the bedroom to finish. 

They go to Ginny’s dormitory, too, and have sex in her room while her roommate is on holiday. They visit the showers in her Quidditch locker room. They rewrite the history of her tiny room at the Burrow and fuck there under three different silencing charms. They are not exactly happy, Harry thinks. More like determined. But they’re single-minded, at least, and they’re in it together. 

And Harry knows they’re avoiding things, knows it by the way they never talk about the sex — or about anything else, really — but they both want it, especially whenever it’s hot and desperate and wrong, but fuck it, _fuck_ it, Ginny would always say, as though the words themselves were a fight. 

She tastes like nothing he can describe with words, unless she’s been drinking. Then, she tastes like firewhiskey and fresh air and sweat and spring, like the first buds of the leaves on the trees. 

They do this for years, all through Ginny’s time at uni and Harry’s time doing… whatever it is he's doing. They use sex to push down every emotion, to rechannel everything into each other. Harry would fuck her anywhere, just to forget. 

He’d realise later, with a gnawing shame, that he didn’t think too hard about what she really wanted, or what felt good for himself or for her. But she must have liked it, yeah? She would arch into his touch, demand he move faster, nudge his head down and tell him to push his fingers deeper. She would always ask for more, and all he cared about was chasing the release, that blissful moment when he wasn’t thinking, followed by the sweet, lazy, honeyed feeling in his bones after he came. Sometimes he could even sleep for a few hours without the nightmares. He had occasional flashbacks when he was awake, too, but they happened less frequently when he spent time with Ginny instead of rattling around his depressing house alone.

And Ginny — she felt better too, Harry thought. She must have. She smiled. She _cuddled_. Her razor-sharp edges and simmering temper got softer. Harry wanted to do this for her, wanted to make her smile. Ginny was fire and ebullience, quick wit. She was flash and confident and sure. She wasn’t meant to be desolate. 

Not like Harry. 

Desolation was in his blood. He knew it, now. He’d been a desolate _baby_ , for fuck’s sake, the Dursleys and that cupboard long hidden behind more pressing and recent evils — but buried there down deep, nonetheless. Harry is numb all the time. He feels nothing, and sex with Ginny is about proving himself, in the beginning. Proving he could feel something. Proving they were normal and healthy, that they were okay. That they had survived. That they _would_ survive.


	2. Chapter 2

Ginny falls pregnant just before her twenty-second birthday. She’s tired, misses her period, and figures it out right away. 

After taking a Muggle test — she and Harry don’t know the diagnostic spells for pregnancy, and they certainly can't ask anyone — she comes out of the bathroom, eyes wide, and Harry knows without her saying a word. He gets up and reaches for her hands, but she won’t come close enough to touch him. So he just stands there. They’re just the same height, Harry thinks, inanely. 

They stare at each other for a long moment — _what have we done?_ — before Harry has to look away. He sputters something unintelligible about contraceptive potions. 

“Well, you never fucking thought to ask about them before, did you?” she snaps. He had once, actually, in the very beginning, but he thinks it unwise to bring that up. Ginny’d said she was taking care of it, and once again, he’d been relieved not to shoulder that responsibility. But now she’s looking at him with a different kind of fire in her eyes. 

He asks, barely coherently, whether she wants to end the pregnancy. He can’t read her face at all, but she shakes her head once, hard. He drops it, relieved again. She hates him a bit, just then, and resents him too, and he knows it. 

At first, all they do is panic. Summer had given Ginny a break from the Centaurs’ brutal travel schedule, but she’d still been flying every day, sometimes with her teammates in light off-season training — “light” for them was still four hours a day — and she’d been knocked off her broom half a dozen times in the past few weeks. There, in the bedroom, she begins listing all her pregnancy transgressions: she’d smoked Gillyweed with Ron twice; she’d drunk goblin wine and followed it with a hangover potion the next morning; she’d taken Dreamless one night when she couldn’t sleep; she’d eaten a whole list of foods she wasn’t supposed to. Harry has never even heard of half the precautions on the unbelievable list Ginny seems to already have in her head. Asking himself his eternal question — _does everyone know this but me?_ — he falls silent, and his silence seems to enrage Ginny even more. 

“ _Say_ something, Harry!” she says, her voice rising, and finally he blurts out, “I don’t know, let’s go see a Healer, yeah? Maybe they’ll know about some of these… issues,” he finishes lamely. 

Two hours later, Ginny’s had an exam and the brisk, too-sunny mediwitch is snapping off a glove. 

“It’s still early days yet, but things look splendid! Right on track!” she announces cheerfully, on her way out of the room. “We’ll give you a supply of good prenatal vitamins, and make sure to eat a moderate and healthful diet. Not too much, mind, and not too little. Baby will always take what it needs from a woman’s body. Just take care of yourself!”

Ginny’s already glowering before the mediwitch adds, “Oh, and no more flying, Mum!” 

The look of horror on Ginny’s face would be funny if it wasn’t so genuine. Harry isn't sure whether it’s about flying, or being called “mum,” or both. 

“No more _what_?” Ginny asks. The poor mediwitch turns, her hand still on the door handle, and almost drops her wand when she sees Ginny’s expression. 

“Er, flying, dear. Quidditch. Not forever!” she hastens to add. “Just for the duration of the pregnancy, that’s all. You don’t want baby to be jostled if you fall. Not to mention the bludgers—“

“What about cushioning charms?” Ginny interrupts. “I could use so many cushioning charms, I could—“ 

Looking like she wants to sink into the floor, the witch shakes her head. “No, dear. Flying is simply too dangerous for baby.”

“ _Not_ flying is dangerous for _me_ ,” Ginny says, and Harry nods along because it’s true, and because he hates this mediwitch just a bit, suddenly. “ _Baby_ is going to have to understand that, and _you_ are infantilising women who are—“

“Maybe we could talk to another mediwitch,” Harry suggests, and then Ginny looks at him like Avada is on her very lips. For a moment, Harry wishes it was. 

They talk to three other Healers, including a sports medicine expert, and they all say the same things: cushioning charms aren’t 100 percent effective, there are other dangers too, sudden altitude changes cause undue pressure, on and on. No Quidditch; no flying. 

For weeks, Harry tries desperately to make it okay for Ginny. They'd both said before that they wanted kids, at least in the abstract. At least two, so the first one would have a sibling. "Two's plenty as long as neither of them turns out like Percy," she grimaced, and he'd laughed.

Whenever Harry thinks about the baby, a little part of him begins to glow inside, a tiny, secret Rememberall there in his chest. A father. His own father was terribly young, yes? ( _And look how that turned out,_ a cruel voice whispers, and Harry locks it down. He would be fine. They would both be fine. No, all _three_ of us will be fine, he thinks, and the light glows a bit brighter. They would be three.) 

Harry keeps Grimmauld Place, but he and Ginny move into a new house just around the corner from the Burrow. It's pink on the outside and full of light inside, like nowhere Harry's ever lived before. 

They get married at Bill and Fleur’s cottage, the salty air whipping at Ginny’s dress. Harry says “I do” and means it. When he pulls her close to kiss her, he tastes the sea on her lips, and then he feels a little kick right at his abdomen, even through all those layers of clothes. Someone tips off the press, but when they refuse to bugger off, George launches vicious sulfur-sticking charms at them until they flee, which is highly satisfying.

Harry’s breathlessly happy that day. Getting married is brilliant; Ginny is brilliant. He can’t tell if he’s thrilled or terrified or both, but it feels normal, somehow. Arthur assures him that a young father is supposed to be terrified, and Harry clings to those words. 

James is born a few months later. Ginny’s contractions start hard and fast, too early, in the middle of the night. Harry never sleeps much or deeply, and he’d awoken with a start when he felt her shift in the bed in an unfamiliar way. Ginny looks at him with panicked eyes. 

“I’m not ready,” she says, already breathing hard, as Harry begins to Levitate half their flat — later, he’ll discover that he’d packed seven t-shirts but no pants for himself, and not a stitch of clothing for Ginny — into an empty bag. “The baby’s not ready.” But by the time they get to Mungo’s, it’s clear he’s on his way. The monitoring charms show he’s fine, a strong heartbeat and good activity. There’s a special charm too, a jet of warm, golden-pink light from the lead Healer, that somehow reassures the baby, tells him not to be afraid. Harry’s not sure of the details, but it helps them all relax. 

A mediwitch (thank Merlin, not the one from that first appointment) casts half a dozen charms at Ginny as well, for pain relief and stamina and who knows what else. Their hospital room is locked down as tight as a Gringotts vault, so there's no press anywhere. No friends, even, just him alone with Ginny and the Healers. There is quite a lot of fluid and blood, _her_ blood, and it scares the fuck out of him.

But Harry is good in a crisis. He’s good when it counts. His instincts kick in, and he remembers the rhythm of this now — of presenting bravery in the face of fear — and he tries all the techniques they’d learned beforehand. His hands on her back, her hips. Cooling spells for her forehead. A spell to make the bed firmer, another to transfigure a cup into a yoga ball. She’s resolute and focused. Towards the very end, there’s a special opening charm, one he’s never heard before, that the Healers can’t use until the woman is ready. 

During the birth, the cruel voice shows up only once. _You’re far too young for this, and far too fucked up_ , it tells him, but he shoves it aside the way he always does and then there’s a baby, a tiny thing with a shock of wet black hair and dusky skin like his own, like his own father’s.

This, Harry thinks, is truly magic. 

\---

The first few weeks are difficult. Immediately after they bring James home, that old burden of proof — the feeling of being constantly scrutinised (by the Weasleys? Hermione? himself?) to make sure he’s okay — roars back and grows heavier. It settles on him like a physical weight.

He tells himself that he needs to be more okay than ever. There’s another _person_ , after all, a completely helpless one who needs him blindly and constantly. And Harry has absolutely no idea what to do — how to hold a new baby, or feed it, or change a nappy, or make it stop crying. While Ginny was still in hospital, people had told him that everyone feels that panicky new-parent feeling, but Harry can't help but believe it's worse because he's never seen someone be a parent to an infant.

Back at Grimmauld, Ginny is restless and sore. Harry catches her flying in the garden below the cloud cover when James is less than a week old. He doesn’t mind — rules have never been his forte, either — but he hates that she’s lied to him, that she feels she has to. He pretends he doesn’t notice every time she comes back inside from “a walk,” breathless and red-faced. He’s jealous, because he wishes he wanted something, anything, as much as she wants to fly. _Maybe I want James that much_ , Harry thinks as he looks down at the baby in his arms. The tiny fists, the rosebud mouth, the huge eyes that went from blue to brown just a few days ago.

She hates breastfeeding, even though she tells Harry she’s not supposed to hate it. He'd had no idea infants needed to be fed every few hours. And he had no idea how quickly and also how slowly those hours could go by, nor how much he'd wish he could feed James himself. He secretly wants her to stop, and asks her why she doesn't.

"If we feed him formula, I could give him a bottle too, yeah? What's the big deal?" Harry knows how wrong this is, particularly that last bit, before the words are even out of his mouth. Ginny looks at him, fury in her eyes again.

"Do you have any idea how fucking hard it is, how…" She breaks off, searching for the words. "How claustrophobic and relentless it is, to be the sole source of food for another human being? Do you think I'd keep doing it if I didn't think it was really fucking important?" She glares at him, but they're trapped; they can’t just walk away from each other for a good long while, which is their usual technique for diffusing or avoiding fights. They need each other too much, need to hand off the baby or struggle for a quick nap before James needs to eat again.

On his twenty-fourth birthday, Harry is awake as the clock flips over to midnight, changing James' nappy. He hums ‘Happy Birthday’ to himself so the baby can hear it for the first time, but keeps his voice soft and uses the dimmest possible Lumos so the baby doesn’t fully wake up. James is still heavy with sleep, and he burrows under Harry’s chin when he picks him back up. Harry's still humming softly. 

Harry manages to put James back down in his bassinet next to their bed without rousing him enough to yell for food, without waking Ginny. He creeps back out of the bedroom, mentally high-fiving himself, when, out of nowhere, a flash of the white blanket covering the pram near the door catches his eye. For one terrible, screeching moment, he’s transported to King’s Cross Station on the night of the battle. He's in that blinding white place, with its otherworldly sterility and preternatural calm. He has to brace his hand on the wall and squeeze his eyes tight. 

No, he thinks. _No._ He's been doing so well, doing such a good job at never, ever, ever allowing Voldemort into his mind. He will not, he will _not_ , think about Voldemort, Voldemort’s soul. He will not think about how that figure looked like a baby, looked like — _don't think it, fuck_ — like James. Harry clutches his head. He will not think of Dumbledore. He will not think of the station, will not think of the perfect respite he felt there, how it felt to be calm and clean and whole in the midst of all that darkness and death. 

For one terrifying moment, he thinks he feels his scar burn and he falls to his knees, hard, banging his hip and sending a lamp crashing to the floor on the way down. James wakes up, wailing, and Ginny tears out of the bedroom, sees Harry on the floor, and screams. Even in the raging, breathless storm of his panic, he thinks, _I’ll do anything to avoid being the cause of the look on her face again._

James is how Harry learns to ask for help. 

He sits up the rest of that sleepless night, convincing himself his scar does not really hurt and he was imagining things, that exhaustion causes hallucinations, that he is completely fine. He Floo-calls Neville first thing in the morning, asks for the name of the Mind Healer he’d been seeing for years, and makes an appointment the moment the office opens. 

He's terrified to be alone with James for a few weeks, but slowly, slowly, Harry bounces back. James becomes an easy baby, smiley and curious. Molly helps more with the nights, with the cooking, with everything. She is calm and steady, in her element. Ginny goes back to her Quidditch team the absolute first moment she possibly can. Harry caught her flying in the garden at night half a dozen more times, but he’s never told her. She looks so free, alone, lit by the moon, in a place where no one can reach her.

And James brings so much happiness, too, and not in the moments Harry had expected it — not in the milestones of first steps, or first words, or touching a Snitch for the first time. Not really. It's more that there’s so much mundane happiness, like how brilliant it is when a baby grabs your finger and holds it, just a reflex but also a claim. _Mine_. The simple, blind trust of it is so beautiful that it's almost painful. He tries to explain it to Ron once or twice, but it all feels like a cliche. 

Harry decides — too fast, in retrospect — that he has to get a job, and he applies to the Auror training program. His Mind Healer cautions him about this line of work, citing his complicated relationship to authority figures and the stress of investigative work. Ginny comes out firmly against it, even after the Ministry owls to say they're delighted and offers to fast-track him, cut short his training period, and allow him onto the regular force almost immediately.

“There are millions of other jobs, for fuck’s— er, for Merlin’s sake,” she says. They are trying to stop swearing in front of the baby, who’s speed-crawling around the floor, leaving a path of teething biscuits in his wake.

“Not for me,” Harry insists, and Ginny rolls her eyes but smiles. 

“Aren’t we enough to satisfy your saviour complex?” she asks, motioning to herself and James, who’s now trying to pull himself up onto a coffee table.

“Stop it," Harry smiles. He throws cushioning charms at its corners and then one at the baby himself, for good measure. “It’s just the only thing that makes sense to me, you know?” 

“But there are so many other jobs,” Ginny says. “Less dangerous, less… I don’t know, _triggering_.” 

Harry grimaces; the Mind Healer has used the same word. “Like what?” he asks. 

“Oh, I don’t know… you could go back to the joke shop again. Or open a bakery, or a coffee shop. Or a bookstore.”

Harry snorts. “Can you honestly see me doing any of those things?” 

“Yes!” Ginny’s starting to laugh now, a sweet sound that starts low in her throat. Impulsively, he leans over to kiss the spot softly. She smiles when he sits back. “How about becoming a professor? I could coach the house Quidditch teams. We could go live at Hogwarts, all together.”

“You can't give up a spot on a team like the Centaurs to teach first-years how to fly. And you and I didn’t even finish school, Gin,” he says, smiling again. “I doubt they’d be banging down our door, asking us to teach kids how to be shite students who won’t ever follow the rules.” 

Ginny tips her head back and laughs in earnest, exposing her long throat, and Harry kisses it again. “Well, we weren’t exactly skiving off, but I see your point,” she says. 

“In some alternate universe, maybe a different job might work,” Harry concedes. “But I think being an Auror is right for me now.” He tries to sound confident, tries to make the words make sense. It truly feels like the only path that’s reasonably open to him. And he’ll get to work with Neville and Parvati, at least. 

Ginny cups the back of his head gently and looks into his eyes. “You’re telling me you truly _want_ to be an Auror, Harold?” It's been ages since she's called him that. There’s a sudden gentleness in her voice, and she puts a hand on his knee. It feels nice; it’s been a while since she’s touched him softly. Or not-softly, for that matter. A while since she's touched him at all. Across the room, James tries to pick up a sharp quill on the table and Ginny Accios it. He starts to cry in protest, so she gets to her feet with a groan and goes to pick him up. 

“Yeah,” Harry says, even though he's talking to her back now. “I do.” He’s not sure if he’s convincing her or himself. 

\---

Then comes Al. The pregnancy is deliberate this time, so that the two kids would be close in age. They figured they could get all the nappies, and Ginny's time away from the team, out of the way at once. And, very quickly, there it is, another pink cross on the test. They still hadn't learned the diagnostic spells. 

Harry is overjoyed, this time. The pregnancy goes smoothly. They both look forward to the next birth, and it's like a miracle all over again. Later, when things got bad between them, Ginny would joke about how things would be grand if only she could give birth every day. They were best together when they had a project.

But Al turns out to be a different, more difficult baby. He's colicky, and he screams and screams. As hard as things were with James as an infant, they're ten times harder with Al. 

And then, on accident and far too soon, comes another pregnancy. Ginny cries when she finds out — they’d had sex _once_ , dutifully, because they’d gotten grimly drunk on a date night that Molly had forced them on. Ginny had fallen asleep before she took the contraceptive potion, but she was still nursing Al, after all, and she'd thought it wouldn't happen. 

She does want to end this pregnancy. The arguments they have over it are terrifyingly long, and he wonders if perhaps this will be the thing that ends their marriage. She accuses Harry of letting his fucked-up childhood dictate their lives. He’s not sure she’s wrong. In fact, he’s quite sure _he’s_ wrong. And yet, he can’t let it go. 

The baby is a girl, and the only one with a shock of red hair. They’d planned to name her Lily, but as soon as she's born, they switch immediately to the name Ginny had originally wanted: Ember. She's a spark, not a flower. Harry feels he owes Ginny this, at least.


	3. Chapter 3

Harry is, by any measure, a good father. He knows this, can point to a decade's worth of things that demonstrate it. He has proven it, and himself, many times. 

Now, instead of Fiendfyre and curselight, his nightmares are mostly about his children. They peaked when James went off to Hogwarts last autumn — Harry can’t believe how young he is, how small — but most of his worries, day and night, are about Al. 

Growing up as his and Ginny’s kids hasn't been easy. They're constantly scrutinised by the media and their peers. Harry's hexed more than one photographer, and he's _wanted_ to hex more than one of their classmates. But James and Ember both, even though she’s still a tiny thing, have a certain toughness to them. A thicker skin. 

Al reminds him of himself as a kid, unguarded and exposed, all glasses and crooked teeth and skinny legs. All nerves and fear. Al _flinches_ , just like Harry had, and still does sometimes. It’s hard for him to relate to other kids. At eleven, he’s still never had a best friend, or really any friend at all. “You’re only as happy as your unhappiest child,” Molly has always warned, and she’s right. 

Ginny is unhappy, too. They’ve been tense, arguing often, and last night had been particularly loud. Al had even woken up, so they’d had to quit abruptly in the middle of the fight to walk him back to bed. Harry wasn’t even sure what they’d begun quarreling over, but it had ended with Ginny citing the near-total drop-off of their sex life, which had been lackluster for a decade but had grown even worse recently. 

Apparently, it had been eight months; apparently, she’d been counting. Since the kids were born, her sex drive has always been higher than his. Harry's fierce urge to protect all of them, Al especially, drains him emotionally and physically, and the last thing he wants at the end of a long day of work and kids is for someone to touch him. 

Guilt and loneliness nag at him constantly, but he's helpless in his exhaustion, the peaks and valleys of his emotions all rubbed smooth by fatigue. He's always tired. There is always too much to do. 

\---

He first reads about Lover’s Voice in a Ministry report. It's an offshoot of a half-dead case, trying to track a rather tepid illegal brewing ring that Harry's team’s been poking around for years. The potion is safe and legal, although the Ministry's internal lab hasn’t fully analysed the results yet. _Purpose: Stimulative effect to genitals_ , the report reads, drily.

Harry leans back in his desk chair, an uneasy prickle settling over him. 

He looks down again at the parchment in his hand. _Efficacy: substantial. General mood elevator. Temporarily increases serotonin levels and blood flow. Promulgated quality to circulatory system. Contraindications: Other stimulants, including_ Felix _and other potions in class_ Felicis. 

He can almost hear the affectless voice of Arvin Mukherjee, the assistant potions analyst who submitted this report, reading it aloud. Arvin sounds judgmental, in his head. Harry scans the rest of the document. 

_Sample obtained from Premier Potions; Proprietor: D. Malfoy. Address: 37 Seaside Lane, Suite 213, LONDON. License: good standing._

D. Malfoy. 

It feels somehow like fate. 

Harry tries to make himself wait until the end of the day but only makes it to half-three before he gathers his things, walks to the communal Apparition point, and selects a spot closest to Malfoy's lab. As he hurries up the nondescript grey street, lined with office buildings that all somehow seem empty, he feels his face growing hot despite the spring wind and the warm drizzle. Which is ridiculous. He’s nothing to be embarrassed about, nothing at all. He hasn’t seen Draco Malfoy in years — not since they’d run into each other once, around Christmastime, shopping on Diagon. They'd been perfectly civil. And after the Fiendfyre, Draco owes him a life-debt after all, doesn’t he? 

37 Seaside Lane is farther down the road than Harry had predicted. Its address is misleading; except for the small, cloudy fish tank in the lobby, this dingy building feels a million miles from the sea. Harry casts a discreet discovery charm, and the only magical signature he detects is just above his head, so he climbs the stairs to the second floor: a solicitor's office, an insurance agency, and Premier Pharmaceuticals.

Harry knocks on the door, but there's no answer. He rings the small bell beside it and can't tell if it even works; he doesn't hear a thing. There's no sound from any of the surrounding offices, either, and Harry begins to turn away. He feels an odd sense of relief, which disappears when the door swings open, and there's Draco Malfoy standing before him in a white coat. His face is gaunt and his features are as sharp as ever. His hair is long but tied back and a bit shaggy, not a shiny curtain like his father's had been. His expression betrays nothing, but Harry sees him swallow twice, the sharp Adam's apple of his throat bobbing up and down. 

Wordlessly, Malfoy turns back into the featureless office and sits behind a bare desk — cheap, made of pressed wood. There's another door behind him, standing slightly ajar, that must lead to the lab itself. 

Harry stays, still standing in the door. The walls are bare except for one painting that looks to be Muggle. A field of wildflowers, completely motionless. 

“Come in, Potter, and shut the door behind you. We mustn’t lurk in doorways,” Malfoy says. He motions to a chair in front of the desk. "I see your manners haven’t improved." 

“Neither have yours, apparently.” Harry steps inside and closes the door, but doesn't sit down. He tries to find his footing in this conversation; he’d forgotten how odd and off-kilter Malfoy always made him, and suddenly he feels the old wish for Ron and Hermione to be by his side. They were still close, in a way, still got the kids together on birthdays and holidays, but nothing like they’d once been. It was inevitable, he supposed. Of course everyone was busy all the bloody time, but at times like now, he missed their presence in his daily life. 

Malfoy abruptly folds his hands on top of the desk, as if he can sense that Harry's thoughts have drifted. There's something lean and predatory about him.

"So you're a chemist now?" Harry asks.

"I’m whatever I want, Potter, and it’s no business of yours,” Malfoy snaps, seemingly before he can help himself. Almost in apology, he grudgingly adds, “I prefer potioneer, but yes, I suppose 'chemist' is accurate as well.”

When Harry doesn't respond right away — silence is one of his favorite interrogation techniques, and he often defaults to it when confronted — Malfoy continues. "What brings you here, Potter? Official Ministry business?"

"No." Harry crosses his arms and shifts his weight. Fuck, but he's uneasy here.

"So this is a social call? How nice of you to drop by."

"No, this is business, I suppose." Harry reconsiders and decides to sit down after all. He lowers himself carefully into the chair, his eyes on Malfoy the whole time.

"Ah, personal business. You’re here for a potion, then?"

Harry says nothing. You don’t owe Draco Malfoy an explanation about anything, he tells himself. Malfoy’s eyes are still boring into him, pinning him down. 

"Do I have to guess which one? What a delightful game. Hm." Malfoy leans back and considers him, and Harry feels a prickle at the back of his neck. A warning, an uneasiness.

“Oh, yes, indeed. Lover’s Voice. It's my bestseller. The ones who get married too young always show up for the same reason.”

Suddenly Harry feels too hot, his face and hands clammy. “Don’t use Legilimency on me, Malfoy.”

“I don’t have to,” Malfoy shoots back, lightning-quick as always. “Your motivations are clear as day, just from one look at your face. But I wouldn’t be allowed to use Legilimency, anyway, now would I?”

Of course not, Harry realises. Former Death Eaters are still under severe restrictions. Tracers on their magic alert the authorities whenever they step an inch out of line. The restrictions are quite harsh — too harsh, some say, although Harry had always supported them. Malfoy would have to submit to the restrictions as well; there had been no exemptions for underage wizards, and no relaxing of the rules even though the war had been over for twenty years. 

“And I’m sure you only do what you’re allowed, right? Such a law-abiding citizen, here in your illicit potions lab.” 

“Nothing I do is illicit,” Malfoy snaps back. “I have licenses for every potion I trade in. Would you like to inspect them, Auror Potter? Are you here on Ministry business after all?”

“No. A friend told me about you.” Harry can hear the defensiveness in his voice. Why is he here, arguing with Malfoy? This was a stupid whim, a lark. He doesn’t even want the potion this badly, he thinks. Things with Ginny aren’t so bad. He could leave without it, right now — but he doesn’t. 

“Is that right?" Malfoy drawls, his eyes narrowing. "Isn't it nice to have _friends_. Lucky for you, I just brewed a new batch this morning.”

“Great. Lucky me,” Harry says sarcastically. “What do I owe you, then?” 

Malfoy snorts. It’s slightly obscene, not something he’d have done when Harry knew him. “Didn’t your ‘friend’ tell you?”

Warning bells are signalling quite clearly in Harry's head, and he begins to wonder if there _is_ something he could ding Malfoy on, after all. “Tell me what?” he asks warily.

“I don’t always trade in Galleons. Not usually, in fact. The goblins get suspicious whenever one of the pureblood accounts exceeds a certain number.” Another restriction Harry had forgotten. Malfoy purses his lips and stares steadily at Harry across the desk. “My potions business is considered trade-in-kind. Completely legal. Encouraged, even, from a Ministry standpoint.”

Harry stays silent — the oldest interrogation trick in the book — and it keeps Malfoy talking, although he gives nothing away. “It suits me, frankly. I’d much rather trade in favours anyway, most of the time.”

“I wouldn't. Name your price. In Galleons, please.”

“No, I won’t be accepting money from you. I set my own payments, and your payment, Auror Potter, is one favour. From the _Chosen One_.” He spits the final words, his sneer just the same as it’s always been. 

“Come off it, Malfoy.” Harry feels even hotter, and he has to stop himself from swiping at his brow and tugging his tie looser. It’s far too warm in the office. “Just tell me what the potion bloody costs.”

“It costs what I say it costs. One favour, of my choosing. Think of it as an advanced bartering system. Like feudalism.”

“Feudalism?” Malfoy always does this to him, always has done — makes him dumb and slow, always ten steps behind. 

“Feudalism,” Malfoy repeats, and the absurdity seems to amuse him. His mouth curls in a smile. “Like serfs and their lords, who own the land the serfs must work. Powerless people always find a way to reclaim some power, or else they’re scrabbling for it in the darkness, building their own empires in some remote, cavernous lair.”

“This is hardly a cavernous lair,” Harry says, looking around. Everything is beige. The flowers in the painting refuse to budge. It reminds him of a Muggle medical office.

“Different people see it differently,” Malfoy says blandly, and Harry wonders what sorts of charms he’s layered over the place. 

Draco’s neutral expression matches the decor. He snaps his fingers — the first magic Harry's seen here — and a small, flat-bottomed jar flies from the doorway into Malfoy's outstretched palm. He places it on the bare desk and slides it toward Harry. Inside the jar, the potion is a thick dark purple, almost black, and it churns and roils of its own accord. It looks menacing, or else Harry’s just projecting. 

“Take it or leave it, Potter. The first one's on me.” Malfoy turns away, as though he already knows what Harry will do.

Harry thought he'd have to force himself to reach for the jar, but he realises he actually wants it quite a lot. When he picks it up, it's warm to the touch and heavier than it looks. He stands quickly and moves toward the door; suddenly, he very much wants to leave.

"See you soon," Malfoy says as the door is swinging shut, and already Harry knows he’s right. He doesn't look back.

—-

He lasts less than a week before he’s back for more. He’d gotten it up for Ginny, twice in one night. He’d been able to think of the right things to say, to remember what they had, and his desire felt real. The potion had tasted oddly good, sweet and acidic like fruit juice. He didn’t think about Malfoy and his hand in this. Well, hardly at all. 

Ginny had wanted it too, surprise and pleasure in her voice when Harry had initiated things. He’d deliberately come to bed when he knew she was still awake — something he rarely did — and had stripped off his jeans and sidled next to her under the quilts. He’d been playing with her hair, rubbing his thumb along the shaved part, and she’d looked him dead in the eye with one eyebrow cocked. He smiled, embarrassed — he was already hard, she could see his pants — and then she sat straight up and threw her leg over him, calmly took off his glasses and set them on the nightstand, and leaned down for a proper kiss. Eventually, they’d fucked just like that: him on his back and her on top with her back arched and her head thrown back, almost like there was wind in her hair, almost like she was flying. 

The next night, he got her off with his hand and his mouth, and he remembered more: the way her hands tightened into fists when she got close to coming, and how she’d always open her eyes right after, with a small, private smile that only sex ever brought out. It was bloody hot. He’d forgotten things he didn’t even realise he’d known, the shame pressing down on him. He’d forgotten. 

He’s back at Seaside Lane, entering that dingy lobby again five days later. At least someone’s cleaned the fish tank in the meantime, and there’s a fleet of tiny, silvery fish darting about in crystal-clear water. 

He runs through the same routine as last time: climb the stairs, knock on the door, wait a long time, stand there looking like a sodding fool until Malfoy swings it open and peers out. 

“Malfoy, what—?“ 

“Wait a minute, Potter,” he hisses, grabbing Harry’s shoulder and pulling him inside. 

“Why are you so paranoid?" Harry asks. 

“There was some wanker with a camera prowling around the building earlier, and I figured it was because of you. Doesn’t the media follow you everywhere?” Malfoy sticks his head back out the door and looks back and forth warily before he shuts it. 

"No, not anymore, and there’s definitely no one here now. Calm down.” 

"Well, you know me. Once a coward, always a coward,” Malfoy remarks, avoiding Harry’s eyes. He moves to sit behind his desk again, heavily; he seems tired, worn out. 

“Seems a bit harsh,” Harry says. It’s cruel, and not even half-true. “You're no coward now. You even help people, in… some kind of way.” 

Malfoy snorts. “‘Some kind of way.’ It’s funny how none of my customers are particularly eager to be known as such. This line of work isn’t exactly noble.”

“Well, it’s not as though you had your pick of any job you wanted, now, is it?” Yet more restrictions — after the war, former Death Eaters were forbidden from dozens of professions and career paths, anything that would allow them to amass too much power or gold. Harry has supported these restrictions too, as a rule, but as usual, he’s thrown by the twists and turns of their conversation. Maybe the restrictions hadn’t been reasonable and even-handed, after all. Maybe they were unfair. And fuck, why is he defending Malfoy to himself, now? 

He feels even worse when he sees the flash of shame in Malfoy’s eyes. “No, I didn’t have my pick. And now, instead of cowardice, I call it discretion. And I trade on that discretion.”

Harry’s silent for a moment, and Malfoy seems to gather himself. “I don’t need to guess why you’re here, I suppose?”

He looks at Harry from behind the desk impassively and snaps his fingers. Another vial of the dark purple potion sails neatly onto the desk in front of him. Harry wants it; he can almost feel the goodwill bubbling inside it. The lightness. The promise of sex. 

“Did you take the previous dose all at once? Did it last for too long or not long enough?”

This small show of efficient concern, almost clinical, the way a Healer would inquire — it stirs something in Harry. He wants Malfoy to ask him more questions, he realises. Wants to keep talking.

“No, it was fine. Brilliant, really. Perfect.”

Malfoy nods as if he’d already known the answer. 

“I even slept well, after— well, after.“ Harry earns himself a raised eyebrow from Malfoy before he turns away. 

“Cheers, Potter. I don’t need the details,” he drawls. “Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

He ends the sentence and Harry has no choice but to pocket the vial and leave, muttering an embarrassed thank you and closing the door behind him, finding himself back out in the featureless hallway once more. 

\---

Harry’s back again a few days later. He tells himself he wants more potion — he and Ginny had slept together again, but something felt off this time, less like fun and more like work — but the issue of payment is what’s really nagging at him. He doesn’t like how opaque it is, doesn’t like _owing_ Malfoy something nebulous and undefined. 

Harry shows up early on a Tuesday morning before heading to the Ministry. It’s raining again, a driving summer rain that’s freezing nevertheless. It makes him hurry down the drab, grey street, past one or two other soaked commuters heading in the other direction. He never has an umbrella when he needs one, of course, and there are too many Muggles around to conjure one or cast a protective spell. When he gets to Malfoy’s building, he runs up the stairs dripping wet, knocks, and rushes in as soon as Malfoy opens the door. He throws drying charms at his hair and his clothes and an extra one at his glasses — but not before he sees Malfoy give an odd look at his soaked hair and the rivers of water running down his face. 

“It’s chucking it down out there,” Harry says, trying to keep himself from visibly shivering. He casts another drying spell on himself, plus a double warming charm, and he sees that odd look on Malfoy’s face again. It occurs to him that he’s watching, closely. 

“Good morning to you too,” Malfoy says, rolling his eyes. “Leave it to you to arrive at some indecent hour and fill my flat with your stupidly aggressive magic before I’ve even had a coffee.”

“Your flat?” Harry asks. “I thought this—“

“I live here as well. In the back.” 

“How do you—“

“The Muggles don’t know. And it’s rent-free, of course. The landlord of the building owes me a favour or twenty.”

He looks Harry up and down coolly and continues. “You’re a wreck, Potter. As per usual. Come back and I’ll get you a coffee too. But if you betray me to these godforsaken Muggles, so help me Merlin, I will hex you halfway to Cornwall.”

He swoops off without looking back at Harry, and it occurs to Harry as he follows — dutifully, like a pet — that he quite wants to see where Malfoy lives. 

But he’s disappointed. Once they’re through the potions lab, it’s an ordinary flat, not at all what he’d envisioned for the posh boy he’d known in school. Just a plain sitting room and a kitchen, mapped out with extension charms, and presumably a bedroom on the other side. Hundreds of books line the walls, but there’s not a single photo. 

Malfoy motions to a worn leather couch. “Sit,” he orders, and Harry sits like a dog. A strange thrill rolls through him as he considers his unthinking obedience. It’s electric, a buzz that sparks somewhere behind his eyes. 

Malfoy walks into the kitchen. Harry can hear clinking, cupboards opening and closing, the hum of percolation. He closes his eyes for a moment against the buzzing in his head, and when he opens them again, Malfoy’s coming out with a tray Levitating in front of him. Before he floats it down, Harry blurts out, “We need to discuss payment. For real, this time.”

Malfoy sighs while he settles the tray, as though Harry couldn’t possibly be more tiresome and predictable. Instead of answering, he pours cream into both mugs and asks, “One sugar or two?”

“Four,” Harry answers, and Malfoy smiles and shakes his head, making his hair swing back and forth slightly. 

He hands over the thick white mug, and Harry takes a sip. It’s perfect. They don’t speak until Malfoy’s stirred and sipped his own coffee. 

“Truth is, I can’t figure out what to do with you,” he says, sitting forward and cupping the mug with those long, delicate hands. His fingers reach nearly the full way around. “I often need Ministry favours, but nothing that rises to your level. And I don’t want to waste you.” 

Harry begins to interrupt, but Malfoy isn’t done. “Sometimes I ask for goods or services, or practical favours. Sometimes, when I can’t figure anything else out, I ask for sex.” 

Harry struggles not to sputter and choke on his coffee; he manages, just barely. Malfoy notices, of course, but pretends to ignore it. 

“But that’s out,” he continues, as though Harry hadn’t said anything. “I’m only interested if it’s mutually desirable. And I won't have it off with married customers. Or straight men.”

Was it Harry’s imagination or did Malfoy’s voice twist just a bit on the word “straight”?

“Honestly — why don’t you have a normal job, Malfoy?” Harry asks, after clearing his throat half a dozen times. “There’s plenty of potions work you’d be allowed to do. Are you still doing some kind of fucked-up penance for the War?” 

“Not that it’s your business, but there’s no point in trying to be normal,” he says, voice flat. “There’s no coming back from what I’ve done.”

Harry fights the urge to argue. “So you just… blackmail people, then?”

“What an ugly word,” Malfoy says. “It’s not blackmail. I just save my ask for when the time is right.”

“That’s basically the definition of blackmail,” Harry says, but Malfoy continues as though he hadn’t spoken. 

“Perhaps I want you to serve as my footstool for the day,” he says, considering, and a strange shiver rushes through Harry that he doesn’t have time to examine just now. 

"Come on, you git, just ask me for something. Something _real_ ," Harry argues. Desperation is colouring his tone, just a bit, and he hopes Malfoy doesn't notice. 

“Well, if you claim you’re not queer, I honestly don’t have much use for you.” Malfoy stands up and begins to clear the tray. 

Harry hasn’t claimed that, actually, and realises that Malfoy is messing with him, fishing for information. Fine, then, he thinks. Two can play. 

“ _If_ I’m not queer,” he says, leaning into the _if_ , “then we need to arrange something else.”

Malfoy raises his eyebrows and Harry feels a small glimmer of satisfaction. “I see. How about you just change my lightbulbs, then?”

“Come on, you wanker.” Harry laughs; it feels odd to joke casually with Malfoy the way he would with most anyone else. “As though you wouldn’t just use Lumos. You’ve known that spell for twenty years.”

“Maybe I just want to see you do it.” Malfoy says the words perfectly evenly, perfectly calmly, and suddenly Harry wants to ruffle him somehow. To interrupt that calm. To disconcert him. 

Fine, Harry thinks again, and sets down his coffee. He deliberately does not reach for his wand. He presses his palms together and pulls in just a bit of magic there, gathers it and shapes it, and then casually holds his right palm out toward Malfoy. Five round globes of light release from his fingers and float lazily toward the ceiling like giant fireflies. He used to do this for the kids all the time, when they were small. 

Still holding Malfoy’s gaze, Harry holds up his left palm and casually casts another, larger globe. He sends it toward the shaded lamp above Draco’s dining table, which lights up with a cosy, warm glow. And, for a final flourish, Harry points both hands down and moves his fingers as though he’s playing a piano, so that dozens of tiny round lights the size of Knuts flutter out and join the larger globes floating near the ceiling. A few of them bob toward Malfoy instead, nudging against him. 

As Harry lowers his hands, Malfoy claps slowly. He’s smiling again. 

“Well done, you show-off. Why don’t you refill our coffees, too? The Muggle way, this time.”

Now it’s Harry’s turn to roll his eyes, but he finds he’s eager to go into Malfoy’s kitchen. It’s brighter than the sitting room, the walls a cheerful yellow and the hob new and gleaming. There’s some sort of fancy coffee contraption on the counter, with a half-full carafe under a stasis charm. Harry pours it into the mugs slowly, replacing it more carefully than he needs to. He runs his hand over its handle, the surface of the counter, the nubbly fabric seats of the tall bar stools tucked beneath the counter. Without quite knowing why, Harry touches half a dozen more surfaces in Malfoy’s kitchen, thinking about what it must feel like to live here, to thoughtlessly run his hands over all of it daily, the way Malfoy must do. He feels calmer here, somehow, than he does in his own kitchen. 

When he finally returns with the fresh mugs, Malfoy has three vials of the potion on the small table next to him but doesn’t look like he’s moved an inch. He’s sitting quite still, with one of the little globes of light just in front of him. Harry watches from the doorway as Malfoy captures it gently in his hand, brings it up to his face to examine with an inscrutable expression, and releases it into the air again. 

Malfoy startles when Harry moves toward him. And when Harry hands him his mug and their hands brush, he startles even more, jerking backwards. All the lights flare briefly, still glowing around the room. 

"Sorry. I wasn't about to spill it on you or anything," Harry says. He's not sure why he's offended. He's not sure why he's feeling any of the millions of things he seems to be feeling right now.

"You don't need to be sorry. That's not it."

"What is it, then?" Harry asks.

Malfoy sighs as though Harry's the most tiresome person he's ever been forced to have a conversation with. "You’ve never heard of being touch-starved?"

"Being what? I’m not touch-starved." Harry wants to shake his head to try to clear out the confusion crowding his mind.

"I’m not talking about _you_ , you self-centered git." Suddenly Malfoy is very interested in his coffee, staring down at it fixedly. He's not making eye contact, Harry realises. Is he embarrassed?

"Oh. You're… are you saying you're…?" Harry doesn't even know how to end the sentence.

Draco sighs. Another globe of light bumps against his hand and he toys with it gently, moving it from side to side. “I don’t know what I’m saying. I never do, with you. You’ve always made a fool of me.”

“Likewise,” Harry says, and he does feel a fool now. What is he even doing here? He stands up abruptly, his knees cracking loudly in the silent room. 

“I should go,” he says, and Malfoy answers, too quickly, “Yes, you should.” He motions Harry out and they walk back through the lab and the office. Malfoy holds the door open and Harry steps through, too close. He pauses and he can smell Draco, now, coffee and soap. The buzz starts up again. 

“Er, thanks, Malfoy,” he says, suddenly desperate not to leave. He lingers, too close, for just a moment, and Malfoy puts an oddly gentle hand on his back, ushering him out. 

“The boss is on a roll,” he mutters drily, and Harry doesn’t have time to ask what the hell that means before the door closes with a final click and he’s alone in the hall, again. 

\---

Harry goes home that night to find Molly in his sitting room, knitting and listening to the Wireless. Ginny’s gone to the pub with friends, Molly tells him, accepted a last-minute invitation, and he ignores her frown of disapproval when he declines her suggestion to meet Ginny and skives off to the bedroom instead. Molly’s always worn her feelings on her sleeve, and Harry can’t help but see that she disapproves of the distance she knows is growing between them. 

He's always felt uncomfortable wanking when his sleeping kids are around — let alone his mother-in-law downstairs — but the urge is undeniable tonight. He’s been on edge all day. He puts up an extra-strong silencing charm, throws a locking charm at the door, strips off his clothes, and falls into bed already half-hard.

He closes his eyes and thinks about Malfoy. Thinks about him being touch-starved. Thinks about him _wanting_. 

Harry fists himself for a minute and then flips over, ruts against the mattress to get some more friction, unsatisfied with having nothing to shove into. He turns on his side and tries fucking into a pillow, but that’s worse, too soft, all wrong. He wishes he had some porn to get the images of Malfoy out of his head, but he doesn’t want to stop to find some; he’s frustrated and angry, he’s not sure at what. 

On his stomach again, he palms his cock more roughly and begins to work himself harder. Trapping his fist beneath him, he stills his hand and pushes into it, everything tight and awkward. He used to always wank this way and it reminds him of his early jerking-off experiences, alone at Grimmauld Place, flipped over on the couch, lonely and anxious. His hips moving faster, Harry thinks of Malfoy again, of what it must have been like for him after the war, whether he started finally touching himself then too. Would he have been learning to get himself off just like Harry did? 

His mind’s eye fills in details — _that white-blond hair all rumpled, Draco biting his lip, pumping his cock, trying desperately to get himself off, and then Harry helping, with his hand or with his mouth, what would it even feel like_ — and suddenly, unexpectedly, Harry's coming with an inelegant grunt. He's fucking into his fist and the mattress, riding out his orgasm and giving himself a sharp twist at the end. He sprawls out, panting, relieved but vaguely disgusted with himself, like this is wrong or cheating, somehow. An image of Ginny appears behind his eyes. He pushes it out again, gives one last thought to the cut of Malfoy’s collarbones and the way his sharp Adam’s apple dips when he swallows.

Harry pushes off the bed and scours himself with a harsh cleaning charm, more than what he needs, and then sends the sheets flying off to the laundry. Molly probably saw them whoosh by, he realises too late, and the creeping feeling of disgust grows stronger. He wishes he had some tea, or better yet some whiskey, but now he doesn’t want to risk her seeing him Accio the bottle. 

Instead, he fetches new sheets from the linen cupboard and puts them on the Muggle way, as a kind of punishment. His lower back twinges unpleasantly, achy and sore, when he stretches. He’s still on edge, maybe worse than before, and he barely even knows why. He falls asleep face-down on the bed, on top of the covers, slipping into a dreamless exhaustion until he hears Ginny come in. The room’s grown dark and his mouth tastes bad; he hasn’t cleaned his teeth yet. 

“What’s up with the door? Since when do I need an Alohomora to get into my own bedroom?” She stops abruptly when she sees the lights off and Harry laid out on the bed. 

“Sorry,” she whispers, lying down beside him, fully clothed. He drapes a heavy arm around her, pretending to be more deeply asleep than he really is. He pulls her close; she smells of fags and summer air, her hair tangled. She’s gone drunk flying. It smells lovely and he shifts his hips, wondering. Ginny notices and shifts against him too, slots his leg between hers. 

“Mm, hi,” she whispers, and cards her fingers through his hair. “Are you awake?” 

“No,” Harry says into the pillow, and pulls her tighter. He can feel her smile. 

“You want to?” she asks softly. Her body is nice against him but her hand feels too rough in his hair. His nerves are still jangly; he’d come just an hour or two earlier. And the sensations he’d conjured for himself — like what it would feel like to put his own mouth on another man’s prick, fucking hell — those might come back while he’s with Ginny, and that would _not_ be okay. 

Still feigning sleep, Harry doesn't respond any more to her touch. Tomorrow, he tells himself, fully awake as she moves away, disappointed, and goes off to the loo. Tomorrow, he’ll take the potion — still safe in its bottle at the bottom of his work satchel — and then he’ll make it up to her. 

\---

“So soon? Gods, Potter, you’re gagging for it.”

Harry scowls at him. He doesn’t actually need more potion this time. In fact, he wasn’t even sure how he’d wound up here; at the end of the day, he’d just wanted to go back to Seaside Lane. But Malfoy doesn’t wait for him to justify himself. 

“I’ve been thinking, since you showed up the other day, and now I know what I want as payment.”

Harry thrills to this, something flares hot inside of him. Draco looks at him appraisingly. 

“Not _that_ , Potter. I told you, I won’t shag married men.”

“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” Harry says gruffly, swallowing hard. 

“Oh, is that right? I'm sure you have absolutely no idea,” Draco says drily. “Anyway. My fee is this: I want an exemption from the anti-Legilimency statute for convicted criminals.” His voice twists on the last word, maybe just a bit, although Harry might be imagining it. 

“What?” Harry’s own voice sounds loud and stupid in his head. A strange disappointment settles over him. This wasn’t what he’d hoped Malfoy would ask for, he realises.

Malfoy rolls his eyes. “Why are you always making me repeat myself? Every conversation with you happens twice. I would like. An exception. To the Legilimency statute. For _criminals_.” This time, he definitely sneers the last word. 

“Why do you want that?”

“Merlin, Potter, aren’t you and your sodding Aurors off playing detective every day? How on earth can you ever 'fight crime' and keep the world safe from the likes of me, when you’re this sodding clueless?”

“Enough with the sarcasm, Malfoy. I just— what do you need to use Legilimency for?”

“What do _you_ need to use it for? That’s why I want it. Among other reasons.”

Harry looks at him skeptically; he’s not sure, actually, whether he can create an exemption for Malfoy. 

“Such as?”

“Come on, Potter. Use your imagination.” There’s a drawl to his tone now. 

“Sex?!” The word squeaks out of Harry, idiotically, and he can feel his cheeks go red. 

Malfoy smirks, the arsehole, as though he’s enjoying himself. “Why _don't_ you use Legilimency during sex, Potter? It’s so much better for yourself, not to mention your partner. Perhaps you wouldn't even need the potion.” 

Fuck, Malfoy doesn’t need bloody Legilimency. He can read Harry’s thoughts already, as clear as day, as though he can see directly into Harry’s brain. It’s always been this way, for them. 

_Who is Malfoy fucking?_ a voice in his head roars out of nowhere. He's suddenly, violently jealous. _Who?_

Harry thinks he might sick up. He closes his eyes. 

“Fine, I’ll see what I can do," he says, and gets out of there was fast as he can.

\---

Acquiring the waiver to the Legilimency restriction was dead easy — Harry had simply requested it at the Magical Enforcement Unit and some clerk had given it to him without asking why, or even really looking him in the eye. Harry signed it himself and registered a copy with the Ministry. That was it. 

He makes himself wait a full day before he brings it to Malfoy’s office, early in the morning on a Saturday when Ginny’s taken Ember to an overnight Quidditch tournament. He’s rewarded with Malfoy opening the door in a t-shirt. Harry’s never seen him in one before; its worn, heather-grey fabric stretches over Malfoy’s surprisingly broad shoulders and then falls softly over the rest of his torso. He’s got joggers on, too, old ones slung low on his hips, and Harry can’t help his eyes travelling down to— 

“That was quick, Potter. You could have sent it by owl,” Malfoy says. He's playing it cool as ever, but Harry can tell by the way his eyes are fixed on the parchment that he wants it, badly. He's greedy for it, and that makes Harry not want to give it to him.

"I noticed you've got a new squid in the tank downstairs," he says, switching the roll of parchment to his other hand. 

Malfoy’s gaze follows it and then he looks up sharply. "It's an octopus. A miniature one. She’s an arsehole, she’s eating all the fish," he says, and Harry can't think of another way to stall — or even a reason why he should — so he hands over the scroll. 

Malfoy unrolls it and scans it, a slow smile spreading over his face. He goes quite still, and before Harry has a moment to stop it, Malfoy is immediately in his mind, rifling through his thoughts as though he's looking for something specific. Legilimency is disconcerting at best, even when you're prepared for it; it's downright sickening when it's sudden and unexpected, and Harry gets a savage jolt that reminds him of Voldemort entering his mind unbidden. That rampaging, uncontrollable violation.

"Ugh," he hears Malfoy say, as if from far away. "The Dark Lord, really? Can't we talk about something more pleasant?" and the images begin churning inside his head again, like an eddying whirlpool. A different one rears up from the swirl — the mental picture Harry had conjured when he was wanking the other night: Malfoy spread out beneath him, naked and wanton, flushed, writhing beneath him, and Harry working his own cock while he sucked Malfoy off. He could also see himself, somehow, his eyes squeezed shut and two fingers in his mouth, pretending they were Malfoy, pretending they were Malfoy's cock. 

That's how long it takes Harry to summon every bit of willpower he can and push Draco out of his mind.

"I knew it. I _knew_ it," Malfoy whispers, the moment they both come back to themselves. Harry has to lean over and put his hands on his knees. They’re both breathing hard, as though they've run a good distance.

" _Fuck off,_ you fucking bastard!” Harry says, as soon as he has enough breath back. “You had no right, I can't believe you—" 

"I know, I know, I'm sorry," Malfoy says, and he almost sounds like he means it. "That was wrong of me. I just missed Legilimency so much. I adore it, and it's been so long, and I really wanted to know if you really... and that was— it felt like flying again. But you're right. Truly. I shouldn't have; I should have more self-control. I'm sorry."

Hearing Malfoy apologise puts Harry on his back foot. "But your Occlumency skills are shite, Potter." Malfoy is joking now, tentatively, as though he’s testing Harry’s reaction. "No wonder the Aurors are a bloody disaster."

Harry can't stop himself from smiling. He should be furious, and he’s still so fucking embarrassed he can’t see straight, but he can’t argue the point. His Occlumency skills _are_ shite, always have been. He flips two fingers at Malfoy, who smiles likes he’s relieved. 

"Wasn't Severus supposed to teach you? To be an Occlumens, I mean." There's genuine curiosity in Malfoy's voice.

"He was supposed to teach me a lot of things."

Malfoy makes a sarcastic sound of agreement, low in his throat. "Ditto," he says softly, regret colouring his voice. Harry feels the back of his throat tighten; this is too much, suddenly, these old feelings along with the unfamiliar ones, too many emotions rushing at him and cutting through his usual just-getting-by fog too sharply. 

"I have to get out of here," Harry blurts without thinking. 

“Yes, I agree that would be best,” Malfoy answers immediately, entirely too smooth.

"No, I mean, I need to get back—"

"I know what you mean." Malfoy hands him six vials, enough for a long time, particularly since he and Ginny have stopped having sex again anyway. Harry’s got a stockpile now, and he doesn’t need it, but he gathers them and practically runs out of the office, down Seaside Lane, back to the Apparition point. That night, alone in a too-quiet house, he downs one of the vials and wanks himself raw, thinking of Malfoy the whole time. He comes three times in an hour, but he’s still wanting and empty.


	4. Chapter 4

The next morning, a few hours before Ginny and Ember are due home, Harry collects every vial of Lover’s Voice he can find and shoves them under the sink in the loo. He just wants to forget about them, about Malfoy, about the feeling of him rifling through Harry’s head, about this whole bloody stupid thing. He casts a sloppy concealment charm — one that doesn’t offer the slightest bit of resistance when, a few weeks later, Ginny calls, “Accio purple potion,” obviously expecting something else. Harry never did find out what. 

“Hey, what are these?” she calls. Harry's in the kitchen and doesn't turn around right away when he hears her voice behind him, the first stirrings of dread already in his chest.

He’s washing dishes the Muggle way so it'll take longer. There are only two sets, his and Ginny’s, and it feels wrong. The kids all left for Hogwarts a few days ago, Ember joining James and Al for the first time. He already misses them, Ember especially. He assumes she’s Sorted Gryffindor like James. Hopefully Al hasn’t taken it too hard. 

When Harry finally turns to see Ginny in the doorway, she's holding all seven vials of the Lover's Voice. His stomach drops. He wants to run, fall through the floor, sick up — but he’s trapped. He turns back to the dishes and starts scrubbing at a pot with rice stuck to the bottom. He’d cooked it too long. 

“Oh— ah, those are old,” he says. “Cough syrup or something.”

She looks at him askance; they know each other far too well for that kind of light deception. “Like a Muggle potion?”

“Er, yeah.” Harry takes a breath. She’ll never believe him. 

“Gods, you’re the worst liar. It’s almost fun to watch you squirm. What’s this stuff really?”

Harry sighs and sets down the scrubber. Still not looking at her, he says, “It was something I took a couple times, to…"

He can’t quite find the words, but she isn't letting him out of it. The silence stretches between them. “To increase my libido," he finally finishes.

“This,” Ginny says, very calm, “is a sex potion? Do you need a sex potion to get off with me?”

“No, it’s not… it wasn’t like that,” he says lamely, still pressed against the sink. 

She pauses for a moment and says quietly, "I don't know, I think maybe it was like that. It _is_ like that,” she says, her voice too quiet. “While we're on the subject of sex, did you tell Al you’re bi?”

Oh no, he thinks. No, no, no. 

“Yes,” he says. “I think he might be—” 

Ginny interrupts, shaking her head. "Stop. This isn’t about Al. It's about us. You told our teenage son something you’ve never told your own wife?” 

“Gin,” he croaks, but he doesn’t know what else to say. 

“Harry,” she echoes, anger creeping further into her tone. “We’re supposed to be partners, you absolute _wanker_. How long have you known?” 

“I thought you knew,” Harry says. The sinking feeling threatens to swallow him whole. 

“Of course I fucking knew,” Ginny spits. “Of course I’ve known forever. But you didn’t tell me, and that’s the point.” 

Harry’s nodding. “You’re right.” 

“I’m right. _Fuck you_ , I’m right. What a lot of good that does me.” She throws up her hands in frustration, and one of the vials slips and shatters extravagantly on the floor. “Merlin. Is that going to… hurt anything?” 

“No. I don’t know. Probably not,” Harry says. He reaches for his wand to cast a cleaning charm, but she levels him with a glance. 

“You can’t even look at me right now, can you?” Ginny’s voice breaks, and guilt, his old friend, washes over him. He tries but she’s right, he can’t make himself meet her eye, and she sits down heavily on a kitchen chair. “Where did you get this stuff, anyway?” 

Harry closes his eyes against this. He hadn’t anticipated that question, somehow, and Ginny is going to hate the answer. She has always loathed Malfoy, and used to accuse Harry of having an unhealthy obsession with him back in school. 

___“Answer me, Harry. Please,” she says, pain in her voice. “Please just tell me the truth, for once.”_ _ _

___“Draco Malfoy,” Harry says, his own voice faltering now._ _ _

___Ginny sets the other bottles on the table, too fast, like they’re burning her hand. “Draco Malfoy,” she repeats._ _ _

Harry nods miserably. “He’s a chemist.” 

“Draco Malfoy.” Her voice shakes and then hardens. “Draco Malfoy gave you a _sex potion_? And you _took it_? And then you _fucked me_?" 

___Her voice rising, she repeats, “Draco Malfoy,” and stands up again and paces the kitchen like a caged animal, “knows you can’t get it up for me.”_ _ _

___“Gin,” he croaks again. “It’s not like that.”_ _ _

“That’s funny.” She laughs harshly. “That’s hilarious, Harry. It certainly bloody _seems_ like it's like that. And to think I thought you were— I thought you had some sort of _renewed interest_ in our sex life, because of—“ she strides back to the table, back to the bottles — “because of a sex potion that _the chemist Draco Malfoy_ gave you. Fuck. I am a fucking _fool_.” 

With an oddly graceful movement, Ginny sweeps up the rest of the vials and dashes them to the floor to join the one that’s already laying there broken. Thick purple liquid oozes onto the tile, mixing with the glinting shards of glass. Ginny pulls her wand from her pocket. She sends a thin jet of pure fire towards the mess and it lights up in purple and black flames. Harry can feel the heat from it, unearthly and strange, and its sweet smell reminds him of the taste of the potion. 

___“You know I love you, and some stupid part of me always will. But we should end this marriage now, before I loathe you all the time the way I loathe you right now.”_ _ _

___Ginny leaves, immediately — the room, the house, maybe the country, for all Harry knows. She takes nothing with her. The sound of the door closing behind her echoes in his ears for days._ _ _

___It takes them another two months to actually separate, for Harry to move into Grimmauld temporarily, and another two after that to tell the kids. There are tears — Harry’s, James’, Ember's. Al bites his lip so hard that Harry worries he’ll draw blood. Ginny is dry-eyed and calm, but no one seems shocked. The Christmas hols become oddly cheerful. They all spend the night at the Burrow, like always, except Harry sleeps in the attic instead of in Ginny’s old room with her. It’s fine. It’s better, even. There’s an edge of manic happiness to it all, but it’s happy nonetheless._ _ _

___The kids spend a few nights at Grimmauld and it’s like camping out all together, and by the time they go back to school, he feels closer to them than he has in years. Even Molly seems to approve, somehow, and Harry’s left to wonder whether everyone — even his kids — knew his marriage was miserable except for him._ _ _

___\---_ _ _

___Right after he takes the kids to King’s Cross, with weak sunlight trying to push through the muddled grey skies, Harry goes back to Seaside Lane for the first time in weeks. Someone’s tried to decorate the lobby for the holidays. Pathetic strings of tinsel hang limp from the corners, and there's a threadbare tree with a few baubles in the corner. And the fish tank in the lobby has been replaced with one ten times its former size. It’s a full-blown aquarium now. The octopus seems ten times as big, too, its tentacles pressed up against the glass, its suckers somehow obscene in their constant movement._ _ _

Everything else looks mostly the same as he climbs the stairs. When he gets to suite 37, there’s a new sign for Premier Pharmaceuticals, with small business cards in a fancy holder attached. There’s also a new doormat, and the door itself looks more substantial, somehow. More prosperous. 

___When Malfoy opens the door, he looks more prosperous too, his hair shorter and shinier, his face filled out a bit._ _ _

___“Oh. Hello. I was expecting someone else,” Malfoy says, and that old rush of jealousy floods through Harry again. It’s madness; he has no claim on Malfoy. He has no right, and yet..._ _ _

___“Hey,” Harry says, shoving his hands in his pockets. He should have given some thought to his clothes, to brushing his hair — unlike Malfoy, Harry’s quite sure he’s worse for wear. There’s more grey in his beard every day. He still grinds his teeth at night, and his jaw aches when he wakes up in the morning._ _ _

___“Hey yourself.” Malfoy’s studying him; Harry can feel the sweep of those cool eyes. "Come in, I suppose."_ _ _

___When Harry does, he continues: "No offense, Potter, but what are you doing here? Back for more Lover's Voice?” Malfoy is keeping his voice is deliberately mild, modulated, and he leans back against the desk and crosses his arms._ _ _

___“It’s not about the potion. It never was.”_ _ _

___“Is that right,” Draco drawls, and Harry isn’t sure whether he wants to snog him or punch him or both._ _ _

___“Then why are you here, Potter?”_ _ _

___“Could you call me Harry?” His voice sounds thin and strangled in his own ears._ _ _

___“Is that what you came here to ask me?”_ _ _

___“No. Maybe. I don’t know,” Harry says. “But— please, Malfoy — Draco.”_ _ _

___Malfoy looks genuinely confused. “Why would I do that?”_ _ _

___“I— I don’t know. I just want you to.”_ _ _

___Malfoy studies him then, and seems to read something in his face. Harry forces himself to hold Malfoy’s gaze until there's a glimmer of… something. Disbelief? Recognition?_ _ _

___“What about your wife?” Malfoy asks at last. His eyes flash like a summer storm, even though Harry feels bitterly cold. Malfoy sits down in his desk chair, putting more distance between them. Harry sits in the chair across from his as though this were a business transaction, as though anything happening right now was remotely normal or okay._ _ _

___“What about her?” Distantly, Harry registers amazement that Malfoy always seems to bring this out in him — this argumentative, angry, edgy teenager — and tries to force himself to grow up, to rise to the level of this conversation._ _ _

___Malfoy glowers at him, so Harry keeps going: “Ginny and I are separated. For good. Don’t tell the media,” he adds darkly. They’ll find out eventually, and a few articles about spotting him at Grimmauld have already led to some speculation, but fuck if he’s going to help them out with the details._ _ _

___“Things haven’t been good between us for a long time, but then Ginny found the potion, and found out I’m bi. She—“_ _ _

___“You’re what?”_ _ _

___“Bi, Malfoy. Bisexual. Maybe you've heard of it?”_ _ _

“Oh piss off, Potter, of course I’ve heard of it. I _am_ it,” he says, almost tripping over his own words, and Harry feels a dim thrum of satisfaction somewhere deep in his belly. “But — you?” 

___“Yeah, me. Why is that so surprising to you?”_ _ _

___“It’s just not— I don’t know, Potter.” Draco rubs at his forehead._ _ _

___"You already knew I was keen on men." Harry takes a bit more pleasure in seeing Malfoy uneasy, but it evaporates when he says, “I suppose, I just thought… bisexuality doesn’t seem very fitting, for you. It’s not in your narrative, somehow.”_ _ _

“My narrative?” Harry’s voice goes unattractively squeaky, but he’s properly angry now, too far gone to coax it back down to his normal range. “Fuck my _narrative_. I don’t have a bloody storyline. I’m a person, in case you haven’t noticed, a person whose life seems to have fallen apart in the last six months, and—” 

___Malfoy snorts with laughter, which seems almost kind, and it brings Harry up short. “What’s so funny?”_ _ _

___He laughs properly, now, full-throated and sweet, and Harry has to take off his glasses to rub at his eyes._ _ _

___“Oh, Potter. Harry. I just…” he trails off into another peal of laughter. “If you think I’m the one to help you put your life back together…”_ _ _

___“I don’t think that,” Harry says. “That’s not what I mean. Fuck, I’m never good at explaining things like this. I just…” he trails off, then forces himself to pick back up again. “I’ve been thinking about you since the first time I stepped into this bloody office.”_ _ _

___“Is that so.” Malfoy’s laughter trails off into a cool assessment, an echo of the first time he’d come to this featureless office. Harry has to summon up some vestige of his Auror training to keep looking him in the eye._ _ _

___“Yes. I’ll prove it to you. Use Legilimency on me.” Harry tips up his chin defiantly. “Please,” he adds when Malfoy doesn’t respond right away._ _ _

___“Hmm. Interesting to see you beg, Potter, but I need some time to think this over. Come back in a week.”_ _ _

___“A week?” It sounds like an eternity. “No,” Harry says, getting more reckless. “No,” he repeats, and without knowing what he’s doing, he stands up and comes around to the other side of the desk. He’s crowding Malfoy, who’s still sitting, and he can’t help but realise that he’s just put Malfoy eye-level with his crotch. He barrels on. “I’m not leaving, and I’m not going to accept some arbitrary deadline. Either you want me, or you don’t. Tell me now. Put me out of my fucking misery.”_ _ _

___Suddenly, Harry feels magic flare around him — the wards, he realises belatedly, must be responding to Malfoy being threatened. He’s distracted and turns toward the door, and that gives Malfoy time to push up out of his chair, knocking it back against the wall, and before Harry even has his wand out, Malfoy’s the one crowding him against the opposite wall._ _ _

“You think I know what I’m doing just because I’ve fucked men before?” Malfoy is up in Harry’s space — close, too close — but also not close enough. “I’ve never fucked _you_ before. I haven’t the foggiest clue what we're doing here, now that you've ambushed me.” His eyes are alight, boring into Harry’s with an icy blue intensity. “But I'm all alone in this world, Potter. I’ve got no one. Nothing. Trust me, I have no bloody idea what to do with you.” 

“And do you _want_ it that way?” Harry’s back is against the wall; his magic thrums inside him the way it does when he’s facing danger. “Why are you still punishing yourself, after all this time? Haven’t the stupid restrictions from the Ministry punished you enough?” 

___“Enough?” Draco’s eyes glitter with something hard and angry, disbelieving. “Of course not. It can never be enough. Nothing they could ever do—“_ _ _

___“I don’t care,” Harry says, recklessly. “I don’t care about any of this, I don’t want to talk about the War or what we’ve done. I want you, Malfoy. Draco.”_ _ _

___“Well, the great Harry Potter wants something! Bully for you.” Malfoy’s almost shouting now, and he smacks a hand onto the wall near Harry’s head. Harry flinches hard, but his body thrills again, thrills to the threat of it. It’s all he can do not to grab Malfoy and snog him senseless. He wants his mouth, wants his body pressing him to the wall._ _ _

“Come on, then,” Harry says, low and quiet. There’s no shake to his voice. He’s certain, even though he’s not sure what exactly he’s goading Malfoy into. Harry doesn’t know when he’d switched from vague fantasies to outright wanting — to wanting _this_. He doesn’t know when he’d finally admitted it to himself, doesn’t know when he’d allowed the thought to take hold, but there it was, and the voice in his head is positively shouting now. He's already harder than the Lover’s Voice had ever made him, his cock aching, his _heart_ aching, wanting so badly to be touched. 

___Something in Malfoy flares again, shifts and crackles. He steps away from the wall, and Harry instinctively follows him._ _ _

___He feels Malfoy circle behind him and starts to turn, but Malfoy says, almost like he's testing him, “Hands on the desk, Potter. Keep them where I can see them." Harry falters for a moment, unsure. But as he slowly obliges, his cock stiffens more. He’s letting Draco Malfoy order him around. He likes it._ _ _

Yes, the voice in his head hisses, yesssss, far too snake-like for comfort, and Harry squirms, fuck, _what_ is he _doing?_ , but then Draco has sunk to his knees behind him. 

“Turn,” he says, so quiet, in a voice Harry’s never heard from him before. He isn’t sure he likes it. Malfoy wasn’t meant to be quiet like that. 

___“No, not like this,” Harry finds himself saying. He doesn’t want to be sucked off. He wants Draco’s mouth on his own. Wants to feel Draco's body on his, pinning him down. Wants — his breath hitches just at the thought — Draco inside him. Harry drags Draco up by his elbows, inelegant and awkward._ _ _

___“Stop manhandling me, Potter—“ is all he gets out before Harry’s kissing him, hard. He feels Draco relax, melt, and suddenly it’s more right than anything he’s ever felt, all heat and tongues and teeth, Draco’s hand up in his hair. Harry hears himself moaning, making these bloody embarrassing sounds that he just can’t help._ _ _

___They kiss for a long time, growing more heated by the moment. Harry is lost in it, and they’re rough with each other, so much rougher than he'd ever allowed himself to be with Ginny. Draco is pulling at his hair and Harry's fisting his hands in Draco's too, and it hurts and he can't get enough of it as he wrenches his head to make it pull even harder._ _ _

___“Bedroom,” Draco gasps. His hands are on Harry’s face, his beard, as Draco tosses his glasses aside, seeming to reach for every part of him. “After all this time, I don’t want to fuck you on my sodding desk.”_ _ _

___Harry does want that, actually; he wants the unforgiving, flat, hard surface of the desk, he wants it to _hurt_ , but he can’t find the words so he lets Draco walk him backward with both hands still tangled in his hair. They wind up in the lab, and Harry tries to push him against one of the long benches, but Draco resists. _ _ _

___“Not here, Potter,” Draco says. “There’s breakable—“_ _ _

___“Then break it,” Harry grits out. This is what he’s been picturing all along; he wants Malfoy, wants to tease that silkiness out of him, wants to see him come undone. Wants something honest and real, just once._ _ _

___But Draco’s not giving it, not yet. “Not. Here.” He growls the words, grabs Harry’s arm, but they don’t Apparate. Instead the lab melts away and they’re in a bedroom — Draco’s, Harry assumes, far more posh than the rest of the flat. One look confirms that it’s just the kind of poncy room he’d assumed Malfoy would sleep in — and Harry finds himself backed up against a wall again. His hands fly up and stretch above him, and Draco casts a hard sticking charm and presses his body up against Harry’s._ _ _

___“This is more what I had in mind,” Draco purrs._ _ _

___“Not what I wanted,” Harry growls, forcibly breaking the sticking charm. His magic feels hot inside him, restless and strong. But Draco just quirks an eyebrow at his breaking the charm as though he’s amused, and fuck, but that makes Harry angrier. He pulls Draco in for another kiss and rucks up his shirt, untucking it and starting in on the buttons. They're small and fine, of course, and Harry fumbles with them until he can't wait for one more second and just tears them open. The fabric snags and he has to force it a few times, which finally earns a startled yelp from Draco. It's just a small noise, but it makes Harry want so much more._ _ _

“Brute,” Draco gasps, but he grabs Harry again even harder. He puts his hands everywhere, possessive over his body in a way Harry’s never known. The line between grappling, between _fighting_ and sex — it’s so thin, it’s almost meaningless. They struggle out of the rest of their clothes, trousers and pants discarded and forgotten on the floor. 

Something clicks inside of Harry, then — something warm and welcome, triggered by the feel of so much skin against his own, and he feels his body relax. He lets Draco walk him backwards to the bed, and they both sink down to it. Draco's hands roam everywhere and Harry pulls him on top; he wants Draco’s weight on him, wants to really _feel_ this. Running on pure instinct, Harry flips himself over so that he's face down on the bed, his face smashed into the pillow. He raises his hips and then grinds back down into the bed, feeling Draco— 

___“Yes, Potter?” Harry doesn’t answer. He doesn’t even realise he’s being asked a question until Draco hesitates and goes still on top of him._ _ _

___“All right?” he asks again, a softer, kinder voice this time._ _ _

___Harry answers with an inelegant “huh?”_ _ _

___“I said, are you okay?“_ _ _

“Yes,” Harry manages to say, but it’s too little, too late. The bed shifts as Draco moves _off_ of him — _fuck_ , that’s the last thing he wants — and Harry’s whole world tilts. He feels unmoored, like he might drift off the bed without Draco’s weight anchoring him there. 

___"Answer me when I ask you something, Potter." Draco's voice is low in his ear, and ticklish, and so gentle that Harry feels reassured. He smiles into the pillow._ _ _

___"Sorry, sir." He's joking, but he thinks he might feel a bit of a shiver go through Malfoy. "I am okay. More than. Keep going. Please."_ _ _

“That’s better,” Draco says, pulling back behind Harry again. “Communication, Potter. Communication. I _would_ like to hear you beg, as it turns out.” 

___"Please," Harry says again, almost automatically, and his voice betrays more of his desire than he meant it to._ _ _

___Things go quickly after that. Draco’s hands on his arse, his hands all over, lube conjured out of nowhere, fingers and sensations everywhere, twisting and pushing. Draco's voice in his ear, again._ _ _

___Harry buries his head in the pillow and grabs fistfuls of the sheets, trying not to shout, not to move too much. And then, slowly, Draco’s inside of him, long and slow, like nothing he’s felt before. Harry comes before he wants to, with a moan he can’t suppress. Draco moves on top of him, unfamiliar and yet not. He comes silently, Harry thinks — he’s not even sure, it's all so overwhelming. When Draco pulls out, he wraps Harry in his arms._ _ _

___“Merlin,” Harry breathes. “That was…”_ _ _

___“Under-negotiated,” Draco says, kissing Harry’s temple so softly that he’s not sure if he’s imagining it. If he’s imagining all of this — the smell of Draco all around him, the moonlight in the window, the vague sense that the bed is rocking like it’s adrift, at sea._ _ _

___“What?” Harry can barely follow this conversation, as usual._ _ _

___“We need to establish some ground rules.” Draco isn't even breathing hard when he props himself on an elbow. A piece of hair is caught in his mouth and he draws it away, absently. Harry’s mesmerised._ _ _

___“We need to tell each other exactly what we do and do not want, and I’d like to ask you not to use Legilimency on me,” Draco says, not looking at Harry, a hint of the old coolness back in his voice._ _ _

___“I didn’t! I wasn’t. I thought you said dual-Legilimency sex was amazing, though?” Even though Harry’s so wrung out he’s barely coherent, the instinct to argue is still so strong._ _ _

___“It is, and I won’t do it with you,” Draco says gently but too smoothly, and jealousy spikes in Harry’s blood again. “Take it or leave it, Potter.”_ _ _

___“Take it,” he says immediately. He’ll take it; he’ll take anything he can get. Draco’s bed is impossibly soft and smells impossibly good. Everything about this, including Draco’s arm on top of him, feels impossible. Ten minutes later, they’re both asleep. It’s still light outside._ _ _

___—-_ _ _

___Harry wakes up in a blind panic, flashing lights and terrified voices in his head, children screaming in terror, a hot dry heat like an oven, the feeling of something essential broken beyond repair. He’s naked, scrabbling for his wand. He can’t find it and the panic increases, and it’s a moment before he can remember the word “Accio.” He calls it out — screams it, really, into the pitchlike darkness — and his wand slams into his palm. “Accio glasses,” he calls, trying to calm down, and jams them on his face, but his brain still can’t catch up and the unfamiliar room makes the panic rise again. Where is he? Where are the kids?_ _ _

___Hogwarts, he thinks, and tries to hang on to the word. They’re at Hogwarts, at school. They’re fine. He’s at Draco’s flat, in his bed, but alone. Harry's sore, in his arse and his hips. Right._ _ _

___A moment later, Draco comes shoving out of the loo, wand drawn in a fighting stance. "What's wrong?" he asks, sounding protective and scared._ _ _

___"Nothing. A dream. Where were you?” Harry asks stupidly; it's obvious where Draco was. Harry doesn't wait for an answer and pushes past him into the loo, shuts the door, takes a slash, and then sits down on the closed lid of the toilet. He's still breathing hard, sweating, his hair plastered to his head. He gets up again to run the tap and splash cool water on his face. He drinks some water from his palm, tries to still the frantic animal that feels like it's trapped in his chest._ _ _

___By the time he makes his way back into the bedroom, Draco seems to be asleep again, but he pulls Harry close like it's the most natural thing in the world. When Draco draws in a breath to start to speak, Harry’s stomach drops. Ginny would always try to get him to talk about the dreams, and that always made it worse._ _ _

___“You know that you don’t owe the world a single fucking thing, right?” His voice is nearly a whisper, but it’s fierce. Protective. “You’re enough. More than, really. Just as you are. Just you.”_ _ _

___Draco’s hands — those long, pale hands — smooth his hair. The touch and the words — it's all so intimate that Harry has to close his eyes and swallow hard against it. He just nods, hoping Draco will understand. And it seems he does; he doesn’t ask Harry for details or an explanation, doesn't try to make everything okay. He just holds him until they both slip back into sleep._ _ _

___\---_ _ _

___The next morning, Harry goes slowly._ _ _

___In bed again, still, they snog for what must be a full hour — an hour where Harry does nothing but pay attention to Draco’s cues, the angle of his head, the way he moves his hands. They go impossibly slowly. Harry holds back over and over, staying almost chaste._ _ _

___“I lied to you, earlier,” Draco says, as Harry kisses his collarbones._ _ _

___“Don’t care,” Harry mumbles, and he doesn’t. He’s just gotten to the hollow in Draco’s throat, his very favourite new spot._ _ _

___“No, wait.” Draco cups his chin and guides him up. “I lied about the dual-Legilimency sex. I’ve never had it. I’ve never… I won’t. Not like that. You— you wouldn’t like what you see.”_ _ _

___“It’s okay. We don’t have to do it.” Those grey eyes are murky and dark with — what? Harry can’t quite tell._ _ _

___“I want to, I do. I—" Draco cuts off and curses softly under his breath. "I don't want to lie to you." He leans his head on Harry’s shoulder, vulnerable, and Harry smooths a hand down his bare back. His skin is cool, his shoulder blades impossibly sharp. Harry feels Draco take a deep breath and feels profoundly, bizarrely grateful — grateful for oxygen, for the very air in this room._ _ _

___“It’s fine,” Harry says, and he means it. “It’s okay. I don’t need to be inside your head. I don’t need anything. Just this.” Just you, his mind supplies, but he doesn’t say it._ _ _

Draco shudders — he _shudders_ — under Harry’s hands. Draco is handsy, needy. His body betrays his desperation before his words do. He’s grinding against Harry, and it’s brilliant. Harry kisses him again, but lightly, too lightly, holding back, and Draco growls in frustration. 

___“Is this some kind of—“ Draco breaks off, letting a hiss of breath through his teeth — “orgasm denial thing, Potter?”_ _ _

___“I have no idea,” Harry says, tracing his tongue along Draco’s nipple, breathing over it. Draco arches off the bed and bites back a groan._ _ _

___“You never know what you’re doing, do you?” he asks._ _ _

___“Nope,” Harry confirms, and Draco laughs darkly._ _ _

___“I can’t believe I’m fucking someone who says ‘nope,’” he drawls in a dopey American accent._ _ _

___“But you’re not fucking me,” Harry says, breathing the words over Draco’s nipple. “You wish you were. But we’re going far, far too slowly for that.”_ _ _

___Draco closes his eyes, but he can’t still his hips._ _ _

___“You used to always get what you wanted, as soon as you wanted it,” Harry says gently. “But now you’ve learned to bide your time, haven’t you?”_ _ _

___“I’ve had to, Potter,” Draco says without any bitterness. “It’s called composure.”_ _ _

“Composure’s overrated. I want to make you come apart, Malfoy.” He sees Draco force back a groan, biting down on his lip. “Oh, do you like that?” 

___Draco bites his lip harder, rolls his hips again, but stays silent._ _ _

___“No more unless you say the words. Communication and all. Like you said.” Harry's no idea where his own bravura is coming from, but it seems to be working._ _ _

___“Yes,” Draco grinds out._ _ _

___“Yes, what?” Harry brushes his hand over Draco’s cock, barely touching it. Draco keeps biting down on his lip and trying fruitlessly to stop himself from bucking up into Harry’s hand._ _ _

“Yes, fine, I like it. Would you fucking _touch_ me already?” 

___“Not until you ask nicely,” Harry says. He’s enjoying this far too much. He can’t believe Draco hasn’t drawn blood yet. He leans down and kisses him, swiping at the bitten lip with his tongue, and Draco moans into his mouth._ _ _

___"Maybe I want you to touch yourself," Harry says._ _ _

___"Fine," Draco grinds out. "Fine. Just— just let me, then."_ _ _

___"Say please first," Harry says, a hint of laughter in his voice, and he laughs in earnest when Draco closes his eyes as though the effort is too much for him. Suddenly, though, somewhere deep behind his eyes, Harry can feel Draco reaching out into his own mind. An image of a door floats by and Harry takes the handle tentatively. He closes his own eyes and the door opens willingly, easily._ _ _

___The images are like watching a river go by at first, just pictures rushing past him. He concentrates, sharpens his mind, and latches onto one before it floats away. It's a memory of that featureless front office on the day Harry had first come for the Lover’s Voice. He sees himself — he looks anxious, tired and tentative — close the door. He lets Draco's emotions wash over him, so strong they're like the pull of the ocean under the moon, a sea tide dragging him away from the shore. From inside Draco's mind, Harry sees his desire, and it's brilliant._ _ _

___Harry gently turns Draco over, spooning him, holding Draco to his chest and grinding against him. Draco makes a small noise and pushes back against him, and somehow opens his mind further. The images speed up and they’re all of Harry, over and over. Decades of himself: newspaper clippings from Ministry promotions; an especially ill-conceived spread of Harry in Quidditch Weekly, back when he still felt obligated to do those sorts of things; his too-big clothes and that time he grew his hair out in sixth year; a glimpse of him, furious and terrified in the dungeon at the Manor. That one’s near a murky section of memories, old ones and too many, like menacing, familiar shapes in the darkness, waiting._ _ _

___Harry doesn’t want to go there, and he’s relieved when he feels another set of memories being pushed toward him, as though Draco is suggesting them instead._ _ _

Harry wades through them. He almost wants to laugh; they're Draco's own furious, horny reactions to Harry, with material for miles. There are simply so many. Draco looking at that same Quidditch Weekly spread, his cock in his hand, angry and afraid. This very room, but freezing cold, tunnelled under the blankets. What must be his room at the Manor, spread-eagled on a lush-looking ivory coverlet. There are more recent images, too: one is from just a few weeks ago, the last time Harry had been to the office. Draco had braced himself against the door desperately. He's frantic, breathing through his mouth, looking down at himself, stripping his cock brutally, his other hand reaching around back to— 

___"Show me. Show me how you touch yourself,” Harry says, eyes closed, in both of their heads at once. "I see how much you want to. Make yourself come for me."_ _ _

___Draco moves immediately, but Harry traps his wrist. It feels impossibly odd, like he's blocking himself, like he can feel the restraint and being the one to restrain at the same time. He's so turned on that he's not even sure what's happening._ _ _

___"Did you have something to say, then?" Harry asks._ _ _

___There's chaos inside Draco's mind, and then one word rises to the surface. Harry feels it before Draco even whispers it._ _ _

___"Please."_ _ _

___Harry doesn’t move yet. A small smile curves Draco's lips, as though he’s catching the game; he's not the only one who likes to hear a bit of begging._ _ _

___“Please, what?” Harry whispers. He knows he’s pushing his luck, but it’s worth it when Draco's smile falls away and the words begin to flow out of him._ _ _

___“Please let me. Please, fuck, I’m going— this is—”_ _ _

And then they both reach for Draco's cock at once, stroking it hard together. Draco's head tips back onto Harry's shoulder — he's shaking, he's falling apart, and this is what Harry has wanted, has _yearned_ for, and they're both wanking him together. Inside Draco’s mind, Harry feels Draco's pleasure and his own, at the same time. His own touch on Draco's cock and under his hand, both at once. He sees a riot of images, swirling liquid chaos that reminds him again of the sea, of being pulled out in a tide of pleasure and sensation. 

___Draco's coming then, coming with a shout, and Harry’s coming too, just from rutting against him. Draco scrabbles behind himself to pull Harry in close, and for one overwhelming moment, the sensations wash over him and he can't tell where he stops and Draco begins. And then, when they’re both still panting, with Harry still inside of Draco’s mind, a single image comes to the forefront: the two of them in a bed, in a white room at night. It's lit up with stars, moonlight, and glowing lights._ _ _

“That’s what you want, Malfoy?” Harry asks, astonished. He rolls off to the side and Draco gathers him up; Harry rests his head on Draco's shoulder. “You had a whole wank bank full of images of me over the course of decades, but you were afraid to show me a pretty bedroom?” 

___“Sod off,” Draco says, but he's grinning, and he’s still not pushing Harry out of his thoughts. Harry can hear the “yes,” loud and clear inside Draco’s mind and inside his own, too._ _ _

___Lifting his head, Harry looks up into Draco's eyes, shining in the low light, and focuses back on the image of the room. It's the orbs, he realises, the glowing balls of light he cast the first time he came to Draco's flat._ _ _

___“Would you do that bit with the lights again sometime?” Draco asks in a low voice, and Harry slips out of his mind. It takes him a minute to remember where he is. He still can’t believe he gets to see Draco this way. Quiet. Sleepy. Vulnerable._ _ _

___“Sure." Harry says, resting his head back onto Draco's chest and pulling him closer. "Why do you like that so much?”_ _ _

___Draco pauses for a beat, long enough that Harry wonders if he's falling asleep. "There was a lot of darkness in my childhood," Draco says quietly. "In my house, in a place I was meant to be safe. I'd like to live in a place with, you know… light."_ _ _

___Harry's heart stutters with sadness, but Draco's already trying to lift the mood. "Don't take it too seriously, though. Maybe I just like to watch you cast wandlessly."_ _ _

___"Oh, I thought you found my magic 'aggressive,'" Harry teases softly. "I didn’t realise that had impressed you so much."_ _ _

___“I wouldn’t go that far, Potter."_ _ _

___“Harry.”_ _ _

___“Harry,” Draco concedes, smiling, and it echoes now and in the past, deep in his mind. And maybe, just maybe, in his future, too._ _ _

___That night, back in the same bed with clean sheets and a full belly, Harry will gather his magic and cast the orbs again. He’ll feel the shiver that goes through Draco and pull him closer. Draco will add some magic of his own — a spell from his childhood that turns the ceiling of the bedroom into a glittering star-filled sky at midnight. Harry’s orbs will float up to join Draco’s stars, and they’ll fall asleep beneath a charmed sky, one that glows with two different kinds of light._ _ _


End file.
